ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

Twenty-first-century vaudeville singer Cecelia Otto returns with an all-new program from an era of American history often overlooked: our country’s participation in the First World War. An American Songline: The Songs of World War I includes many patriotic favorites — such as “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” — yet Americans regarded the war from a variety of perspectives, all reflected in the songs of the day. Some songs poke fun at military life, like “Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning” and “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm.” Others capture the melancholy of people on the homefront separated from their fighting men overseas, including “Hello Central, Give Me No-Man’s Land” and “Till We Meet Again.” Even pacifism had a voice in pre-war America, and “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” sold 650,000 copies in 1915.

“Bringing history to life through music is my calling,” Otto says. “You can learn so much about a place and time through its songs, and the songs people sang during World War I really speak to the patriotism, the determination and the fears everyone felt at the time.”

Accompanied by pianist Linda Smith, Otto sings these songs the way audiences of the time heard them — including lyrics subsequently dropped by later generations. "In the days before radio, when few people owned phonographs, people mostly heard songs by gathering around the piano in the parlor and singing them right off the sheet music. That was the approach I took in recording these songs, and it's surprising how much is there waiting to be rediscovered. Everyone knows the chorus of 'You're a Grand Old Flag,' but when was the last time you heard the verses?"

An American Songline: The Songs of World War I is a wonderful document of a time when America first began to take its preeminent place on the world stage — and when popular songs mirrored the optimism, determination and sorrows of a people.